


ghost of your childhood

by Areiton



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Character Study, Childhood Friends, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Growing Up, POV Second Person, Pre-Slash, Protective Bucky Barnes, Red Room (Marvel), idk how to tag this to be honest, this never happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-14 18:23:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18481822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: You are dancing when you realize he's there, storm sky eyes watching watching watching. You almost stumble, almost. Your breath catches, freezes in your throat, but you follow the music, your training and finish, sides heaving and graceful.Your feet ache and your hands clench, empty and wanting, and you wait.He smiles.





	ghost of your childhood

You remember things, before the house of cold walls and strict rules and girls who stared with hungry eyes. 

You remember them in a distant, unclear sort of way, cold and foggy. 

You remember them, but they’re not comforting, ripped away too soon. 

The girls you trained with weren’t comforting, the teachers were not. You were a lost girl in a house haunted by death. 

Until he came. 

 

~*~

 

You were seven when you saw him for the first time. Everyone in the House was dangerous, but he was led in between four men in black and body armor, gun drawn and dripping fear. He was led in and you remember this: long hair hiding his face. Eyes the color of robin's egg and storm clouds. A loose, relaxed set to his broad shoulders. A tiny smirk, soft and gentle, for you. 

You shiver as the guards lead him past, and you wonder. 

 

~*~

 

You don't see him again, not for two years. 

 

~*~

 

The House whispers of him. Rumors in the showers and dormitories, secrets that are rarely spoken. 

They are scared of him, the ghost that haunts your House--not just the girls who will never be your sisters, who will never be your friends, but the teachers too. The cold cold women who train you, the brutal men who shape you into something you don't understand. 

They don't speak his name, call him Soldat and Asset and _Zima_. 

They speak of him in shivering whispers thick with fear and you want to watch him, want to know  _ why.  _

 

~*~

 

He trains the older girls. The ones with cruel eyes and fingers like knives and blood on their ballet slippers. He comes for three months a year and trains them and the House tenses, walks a bladed edge of tension and fear. 

_Zima_ though. The longer he is in the House, the happier he seems. 

 

~*~

 

You are dancing when you realize he's there, storm sky eyes watching watching watching. You almost stumble, _almost_. Your breath catches, freezes in your throat, but you follow the music, your training and finish, sides heaving and graceful. 

Your feet ache and your hands clench, empty and wanting, and you wait. 

He smiles. 

 

~*~

 

His smiles are rare, you realize, precious and hidden. Yours. 

Only yours. 

 

~*~

 

You see him--perch in the rafters and watch him with the older girls. It’s like a ballet, but--not. 

_Zima_ moves like a dancer, but the kind of dancer they want you to be--all grace and beauty, and trailing death. You see him gliding through the girls, knife and hand glinting, and you think you understand, why they’re scared. 

He moves like death is his lover, and these pretty girls his courting gift. 

 

~*~

 

You find him. 

_Zima_ is trailed into the house by his soldiers, but in the House, they fall away, give him space. He prowls almost unattended and when he is not training--he is alone. 

They are afraid of him. 

But you--you are not. You think of eyes the color of robin’s eggs and a smile and light glancing off metal. 

You find him. 

He sits in the shadows, hidden away in the nooks and crannies where you remember hiding when you were a little girl. You crawl in after him, sit pressed against his side, the metal of his arm cold and grounding against your side. 

“You are very brave,  _ mysha.”  _

You frown at the name, but don’t argue. Just sit up on your knees and say, “Will you teach me?” 

 

~*~

 

He teaches you. 

Teaches you to smile sweet and drive your knife deep. 

Teaches you to lie, poisoned honey that tastes like promises.

Teaches you to spin stories like webs and twist garrotes like silk, to take a punch and how to throw one. 

He teaches you this too--how to laugh and the weight of a name given in comfort and kindness. He teaches you the way touch can make you shiver and lean into him, and it doesn't feel like the men who you are taught to seduce--it feels like family. 

 

~*~

 

He leaves and he returns and every time, his eyes are blank and _Zima_ is gone, and all that remains is Soldat, their pretty cold killer. 

It takes you very little time to realize that he is as much their tool and pawn as you are, and you  _ hate  _ them for it, the way you never bothered to hate them for yourself. 

 

~*~

 

He never laughs, your _Zima_. But he smiles when he feeds you sliced apples and bits of chocolate, scolds you and mutters about being thin. He brings crusty bread and sharp cheese and cold chicken and watches until its gone and says, “Dance with me,  _ mysha.”  _

 

~*~

 

He is your secret and you are his and if you are the best in your class of sharp eyed broken dancers, of pretty, deadly spiders--you know why. 

“I don't want to by their tool,” you whisper to him and he nods at you, eyes desolate and you think of the days he first returns, and doesn't know you and you know--he knows. 

 

~*~

 

“One day, you'll be free,  _ mysha.”  _ He promises, the night before graduation, when your stomach is empty and aching in hunger and fear of the looming surgery. You feel his lips against your hair and a cool metal thumb brushing away your tears and you smile up at him. 

“One day we both will be.”

 

~*~

 

You hear whispers about the Ghost. About Hydra's killer, the Asset, the Soldier. You think you know--but it is only when you see him staring at you, eyes cold and blank, that you  _ know.  _

You feel sick, even as you fight your way to Steve. Because you are free. You are  _ free.  _

And _Zima_ isn't. 

 

~*~

 

You help Steve and let him decide  _ why.  _ You know your reasons. 

You burn Hydra and SHIELD to the ground and hope, pray, wait for the ghost of your childhood to rise from the ashes. 

**Author's Note:**

> mysha - mouse  
> zima - winter 
> 
> (according to my really awful google translate)


End file.
